Rising to the challenge

New city council member Aaron Leibowitz hopes to bring about change in the capital.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Aaron Leibowitz (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Aaron Leibowitz
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Rabbi Aaron Leibowitz, the Jerusalem Municipality’s new council member, has a very clear idea regarding what is needed in the capital.
“We have to believe that this city can become the best place in the world to live.” But, he warns, “We have to know that there’s a lot of hard work on the way.”
This mix of optimism and a precise understanding of the challenges facing Jerusalem represents the way Leibowitz – an Orthodox rabbi, head of the Sulam Ya’akov Beit Midrash in Nahlaot and founder of the alternative kashrut Hashgacha Pratit program – understands the way forward for the city.
Leibowitz, 47, who is married and the father of five, resides in the capital’s Nahlaot neighborhood. He served in the Lev Ha’ir community council until now and will be officially instated as a council member representing the Yerushalmim party on April 30. He is taking the seat of Rachel Azaria, the newly elected Kulanu MK. Yerushalmim has two seats on the city council, and with Azaria’s move to the Knesset, Leibowitz, No. 3 on the Yerushalmim list, joins Tamir Nir at city hall.
Leibowitz points out that Azaria’s joining the Knesset doesn’t mean that she is no longer associated with Yerushalmim. She is still the chair of the party, and the new council member describes her as “a woman who has devoted many years of her life to Jerusalem and without a doubt will continue to do so in the Knesset.”
“I’m actually inheriting all of Rachel’s portfolios and projects,” he says.
These include being the deputy holder of the education portfolio, heading the committee for women’s issues and chairing the committee for children’s rights.
“This is a very welcome step up for me. I feel ready for this – a healthy challenge, a learning curve,” he says, adding that he feels very welcomed by council members as a whole and by the mayor.
“I’m very excited about the women’s issues portfolio,” he says. “I feel a sense of humility regarding the stewardship that has been given to me,” he adds, noting that he will work on the portfolio alongside the women in his party.
“It’s intriguing to be an Orthodox rabbi and chairing this committee,” he says.
His position as an Orthodox rabbi is by no means a contradiction regarding women’s issues, he is quick to point out. “I consider myself a feminist, [and] I don’t believe the feminist revolution is over.”
Leibowitz’s liberal outlook is very much the result of his upbringing in Berkeley, California.
“A childhood in a liberal environment had a big influence on me,” he says.
Leibowitz made aliya during high school in the 1980s and has since taken part in many social programs. His involvement in the Yerushalmim party began in the 2011 social protest.
“I met Rachel and some of the Yerushalmim people at the tent protest,” he says.
“That was an awakening for me as an activist.”
The protest, he adds, made him realize that it was “time to stop talking about things and start to make a change.”
And making changes is definitely in the cards for Leibowitz as a city council member. On the agenda are the issues of paternity leave (“I think the idea of men taking maternity leave is awesome”); equal pay for men and women (“There’s no doubt there’s what to be done there”); and the place of women in Halacha, specifically women’s right to immerse in the ritual bath without an attendant.
Being a man heading the women’s issues committee might actually prove to be an advantage, according to Leibowitz.
“Sometimes there’s a certain freedom as the majority to fight” for the rights of a minority. “I’m hoping to make a mark,” he says.
“Of course, Rachel – and Yerushalmim – made a huge improvement on the issue of hadarat nashim,” the exclusion of women from the public sphere, he says. A significant improvement is the inclusion (once again) of women in advertisements throughout the city, which was previously very much disputed by haredim.
“That’s a battle I think we’ve won,” he says, but adds that “there are definitely elements that would love to see the faces of women not appear.”
The agenda of extremist elements who are very strong in Jerusalem definitely requires attention, Leibowitz says. “Women should be able to appear in public.
There shouldn’t be segregation in the public sphere.”
LEIBOWITZ IS also excited about what he can do in his capacity as chairman of the children’s rights committee. He would like to focus on gender education in early childhood institutions, citing as an example a situation in which boys and girls in kindergarten are directed toward the roles allocated to them by society – with boys’ toys in one corner of a kindergarten and girls’ toys in another “What is the place of a male child whose dream is to become a cook or raise children?” he asks.
Changes in the nuclear family are also not acknowledged enough, he says.
“In Jerusalem today, there are kindergartens where a child has two mothers,” he notes, adding that it is necessary to make sure that there is a suitable educational environment to accommodate this.
“These are issues that are often ignored. I wouldn’t say we’re uniquely interested in social and education issues,” Leibowitz points out, adding that there’s “a lot to improve on in almost every area.”
In his opinion, areas of change should include the state of recycling, the need to encourage bicycle rentals and paths and the general appearance and cleanliness of the city.
These pluralistic agendas are a core part of the Yerushalmim party, which was founded in 2008 by Jerusalem residents to advance education, maintain religious freedom throughout the capital and strengthen the city’s neighborhoods.
“The pluralistic voice in this city is the most valuable voice Jerusalem has to offer the country,” Leibowitz says. “We’re coming out of national elections, where we can see very clearly that this country has very deep rifts in the social fabric.”
Jerusalem is the capital city of Israel, and it is a very diverse city, he says. “A party like Yerushalmim that believes in the common good is leading perhaps the most important message today.”
“The city of Jerusalem would do best if its elected officials would think less about what they can grab for their electorate and more about what we can achieve for the common good,” he says. “It’s very easy to get stuck in a paradigm of ‘what’s good for you will be, by definition, bad for me.’” The time for such attitudes has passed, he says. “The people of Jerusalem are ready for this.”
This type of cooperation isn’t necessarily easy on the city council, but Leibowitz believes it is possible.
“I think Yerushalmim is very respected for its professionalism” across the city council. “Different council members have different styles and different personalities,” he says, and his party tries to work most with those with whom it works best, he notes, adding that this is part of the package deal of politics.
Leibowitz doesn’t forget his Anglo background and is, in fact, keen to help his fellow English speakers in the city. As such, he is looking forward to the initiation of parlor meetings in English, where Anglo residents can converse with council members in their native language. This, he says, is slated to begin to take place in the near future.
He is also aware of the challenges that English speakers have to deal with in their day-to-day lives.
“There’s definitely a cultural gap that Anglos in Israel face,” he acknowledges, citing as an example the bureaucratic system in the capital. “Jerusalem’s bureaucracy is not always young, vibrant and fresh,” he says. “Smoother, more friendly access to the municipal system would be very helpful to Anglos in Jerusalem.”
In the meantime, Leibowitz would like Anglos to feel free to pick up the phone and get in touch with him if they want to discuss anything.
“As a native English speaker, I view myself as a representative of the Anglo community,” he says. “I would like to be able to help.”
Does he think he’ll be able to carry out all the changes he’d like to see? “Jerusalem is a very challenged city,” he says. Changes “have to be built brick by brick” in the fields of financial resources, the quality of discourse and the face of religion, he adds.
“I grew up on John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine.’ I have a messianic dream of a world in harmony. This dream is very much connected to Jerusalem. In any case, one of the things I love to do is to surprise people, so what a great opportunity,” he says. •